NextBillion - An Initiative of the William Davidson Institute at the University of Michigan

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Adoption of Information Technology is important in improving access to healthcare in India. After pilot projects in a few states, Central Ministry of Health is planning to empower health workers with handheld devices like mobiles phones for data collection at the grass-root level.

Under the Mission Mode Project, government plans to implement this in two to three months across the country. Earlier, some of the state governments, including those of Gujarat, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh had done pilot projects on data collection through handheld devices. The Accredited Social Health Activists were given mobile phones to capture and send real time data. These were data regarding outbreak of diseases like dengue and malaria, maternal and child care etc.

“The health workers generally collect a lot of data. But by the time the data is filed at the PHC and it goes to the central unit, it loses relevance. Many a times, the data itself is lost. With the use of mobile devices, real time data can be transferred to the central processing units,” said Nilaya Varma, executive partner in health and public service, Accenture Management Consulting. Accenture had partnered with the states of Tamil Nadu and Gujarat for the pilot projects in this regard.